"How Can You Call Yourself a Gardener..."

"How can you call yourself a gardener when you didn't do any of this work yourself?"

That's what a neighbor said when she came over to check out the new back yard. She looked around for a few minutes and then turned to me to ask.

I didn't realize that knowing how to run a backhoe was a prerequisite.

Am I a gardener? I gardened for over 20 years in Massachusetts, where I grew daylilies....

And malva...

And lupine.

And Trillium.

I winter sowed.

I wonder if the wildlife that visited thought I was a gardener?

The wild turkeys even came back the next year.

I grew herbs in a bed I made using the lasagna method.

Which I enlarged the next year so I could grow tomatoes.

Which had to be put under cloches made out of soda pop bottles, because I put them out too early.

Am I a gardener because I compost?

With leaves stolen in the dead of night from the neighbors?

Or because when I run out of room in the trunk, I put bags of topsoil on the back seat?

Maybe I'm a gardener because I passed my love of gardening on to my son.